Maddigan's Fantasia
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- 6,99 €
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- 6,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
In a time not far from our own, a colourful group of travellers braves the twisting, unpredictable landscape of a world trying to remake itself years after near-destruction. They are the magicians, clowns, trapeze artists and musicians of Maddigan's Fantasia, healing the injured land with wonder and laughter.
When three mysterious children join the Fantasia - children with uncanny abilities and a secret past - they bring with them powerful enemies who will stop at nothing to hunt them down.
Soon Garland Maddigan, the 12-year-old daughter of the Fantasia's ringmaster finds herself embroiled in a series of terrifying adventures that will take her within perilous underground tunnels, through the land of the Witch-Finder and across time itself . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mahy (Alchemy) serves up a post-apocalyptic fantasy, fashioning a world struggling back from near-oblivion. In a land where even the best-marked roads sometimes disappear without explanation, Maddigan's Fantasia, a traveling circus, is one of the few links connecting isolated towns. Their current tour, however, is unusually urgent because the city of Solis, their home, desperately needs a new solar converter, and only the Fantasia can reach the distant city of Newton, purchase the replacement and return in time. Their quest seems doomed almost from the start, however, when 12-year-old Garland Maddigan, the heroine, loses her father, Ferdy, the Fantasia's ringmaster, to an attack by highwaymen. Then three mysterious children appear, claiming to be from the future. They insist that they've come back to help the Fantasia in its mission, but are ruthlessly pursued by the not-entirely-human agents of the Nennog, the monstrous ruler of Solis in their day. A well-drawn character, Garland resembles other Mahy protagonists cranky, assertive and filled with self-doubt and her adventures are invariably exciting. The villains, however, are little more than cartoons, while the novel reads as both picaresque and a tad formulaic, each self-contained chapter featuring a new oddball society, a new threat and a quick resolution. The prose has Mahy's customary polish and fans will enjoy the story, but this falls short of the author's very best. Ages 10-up.
